Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/343

 The Governments of Great Britain and France still maintain toward us those sentiments of friendship and good feeling which have ever marked their intercourse with us, and which it should continue to be our studious care, by every proper manifestation on our part, to strengthen and reciprocate. There is no ground to suspect that the late agitation of international questions between this Republic and that of the United States has, in any degree, abated their desire for our continued prosperity and independence, or caused them to relax their good offices to bring about the speedy and honorable adjustment of our difficulties with Mexico. That they should evince anxiety for our separate existence and permanent independence as a nation, is not only natural, but entirely commendable. They will never require of us, I am fully assured, any sacrifice of honor or interest; and if they did, we should be quite free, as I am certain we should be ready, to refuse it. They are too well acquainted with the history of our origin and progress to suppose, for an instant, that we would, under any circumstances, surrender one jot or tittle of that liberty and right to self-government which we achieved in the sanguinary conflicts of revolution, or give up a single privilege secured to us by our laws and Constitution. They will not ask it — they do not expect it—we would not yield it.

Our relations with the United States remain in the same condition as at the time of my last annual communication. We are still without any treaty stipulations between the two countries. Within the last two years, all attempts at their establishment have been negatived by the ratifying power of that Government. That any effort for the same purpose will meet with better success, for some time to come, I am wholly unable to determine.

In all but the name, we still continue at peace with Mexico. Since the autumn of 1842, no incursion has been made within our borders. The moral effect of public opinion throughout the enlightened world, if not the decided intervention of powers mutually friendly, seems to have arrested that course of conduct heretofore practiced against us, on the part of our enemy, and so plainly subversive of every rule of honorable warfare.

Those of our citizens who surrendered to the officers of Mexico, under pledges of the treatment usually accorded to prisoners of war, have all been released from the captivity in which they were so perfidiously retained, and permitted to return home, with the exception of Jose Antonio Navarro, one of the ill-fated number composing the Santa F6 expedition, who alone remains to bear the vengeance of a Government which seems to delight in inflicting upon a helpless individual those wrongs and cruelties which would degrade the head of any other to a level with the rudest savage.

The laws of the last Congress touching our prisoners in Mexico were carried out as fully and as speedily as circumstances would permit.

The commission sent out by this Government to confer with a similar commission on the part of Mexico, in regard to the establishment of an armistice between the two countries, concluded their labors in the month of February last. Under the instruction by which they were governed, it became necessary for the Executive to approve or reject their proceedings. As soon as they were submitted, he did not hesitate, for reasons palpably manifest, to adopt the latter course.

The subsequent manifesto of the Mexican Government, in relation to this subject, disregarding, as it did, every ordinary courtesy, even between